Building a vegetable garden with kids

Our family was thrilled when we bought a home because the 4 of us were previously squished into a 2 bedroom condo and were ready to literally plant some roots! There was a park next to our condo so we were always able to play and explore, but there’s really nothing like having the freedom to do that anytime in your own backyard and make your own decisions about what to plant and grow. We had to totally redo our entire house once we purchased it (roof, windows, interior, plumbing, floors, you name it – it was redone!) and the garden was on the back burner for a while. We made small improvements here and there for the last two years and I’m very proud of our progress.

Both front and back yards were covered in junpier bushes and red and white rock. The soil was incredibly dry and full of clay with made attempting to dig anything out nearly impossible. James was able to remove a few bottle brush trees in the back by himself, but we needed professionals to help with the bushes.

I mean seriously, it’s bush next to bush next to bush.

We also had landscapers add irrigation and a lawn in the front and back. This in addition to pulling out the juniper bushes took 3 guys one week. We also found out a year later that the tree in the back was a fruit tree despite it looking sad and not trimmed maybe ever. We trimmed it back and discovered that we now got to enjoy plums every Summer!

About a year and a half ago, we bought a few raised beds along with lots of organic compost to get started in one corner and work our way around to the chicken coop. Here’s Alice about a year ago supervising her ladies.

Sometimes we get surprises! I’m assuming it’s from the birds and squirrels who love to sneak a snack and possibly deposit seeds. We had volunteer pumpkins and carrots!

Fruit trees:
*Cherry with three different varieties
*Mandarin
*Meyer lemon
*Lime
*Fig
*Plum
*Apple with six different varieties
*And we are lucky enough to enjoy a few apricots with a neighbor’s tree that drops sweet treats into our side yard

One comment on “Building a vegetable garden with kids”

We are growing: strawberries, blueberries, lettuce, spinach, dinosaur kale (Henry’s been curious about it because of the book Market to Market), bok choi, broccoli (a ton!), 9 tomato varieties, basil, green beans, cucumbers, carrots, snap peas, rainbow chard, beets, onions, zucchini, buttercup squash, yellow squash, and a ground cherry if I’m not forgetting anything…and if we get a chance to clear out another garden space that has been dedicated to weeds for way too long, we hope to get in more herbs and sunflowers. That is, of course, provided we don’t lose any plants to deer and other pests.